


keep it cute

by stariter



Category: 3 Below, Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: 5+1 Things, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, no betas we die like men, steve says fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25316488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stariter/pseuds/stariter
Summary: Eli tried to adjust the sleeves, cuffing the ends once, twice; the sleeves still flopped over his hands. The hoodie had completely swallowed him. The bottom reached nearly to his knees, and the patch that was supposed to lie over his heart was closer to his stomach than anything else. Krel was suddenly keenly aware of their height difference. Even if he had been in his human form, he would be taller than Eli. How had he never noticed before?It should have looked ridiculous. Eli certainly looked embarrassed about it. However, all Krel could think was that…. he looked really cute.__5 times krel found himself thinking eli was really cute, + 1 time eli told krel that he was cute :)
Relationships: Eli Pepperjack/Krel Tarron, Shannon Longhannon/Mary Wang, Steve Palchuk & Eli Pepperjack, Steve Palchuk/Aja Tarron
Comments: 34
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> UHHHHHH your girl's back at it. reminder i dont fucking know how to write!!! don't roast me pls! im just trying to populate the incredibly sparse kreli tag on here. i have an outline for all the chapters but we'll have to see how good i am about updating :')
> 
> if you leave a comment ill love you forever!

“Ok, so you bought the cocoa oil?”

“Yes.” Krel held up the jar to confirm.

“Powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, milk powder?” Eli prompted, reading off the list on his phone.

“Yes, we have all of them.” He found each item and brought them out one by one. It took Krel longer to find each item than he expected. He wasn’t that familiar with their pantry organization.

Truthfully, he had never done much cooking himself, or baking for that matter. The Blanks made most of their food, but he had shooed both them and Aja out of the house for today. He was getting a little tired of seeing Steve at their house every day, and to eliminate that problem he needed to stop seeing Aja every day. Likewise, he was tired of seeing the Blanks gleefully act out the roles of a married couple, which apparently included throwing sappy compliments and making heart-eyes at each other all the time.

“Great! I brought over the silicone molds.” Eli beamed. He put his phone down and reached into his backpack, producing two bright pink molds.

“Heart shaped?” Krel peered over at them.

“Um, yeah, I thought they were cute.” Eli said, biting his lip and giving him a nervous look. Krel didn’t notice, so he plowed on. “A-anyways, we should be grateful that my moms let me borrow these at all!”

“I thought you proclaimed yourself a master baker.” Krel stated flatly.

“I am! I learned from the best, after all. I’m just…” He trailed off, looking sheepish. “Well, I don’t have a good track record with taking care of my moms’ things. The last time I borrowed something from Natalie-” Natalie was the mom who specialized in chocolate at the patisserie, Krel remembered, while Megan was best at baked goods. “-It was her car, and Steve kind of. Crashed it into a streetlight.” Eli finished quickly. “It took a lot of convincing for me to get these.”

Krel tried not to laugh at his friend. “Okay, then tell your mom that I’m very thankful for her lenience today.” He took the molds from Eli. “Let’s do this.”

"Sure. H-hey, can I ask you a question?”

He nodded at him to continue, taking out measuring cups for their ingredients.

“Why are we making chocolates, like, specifically? I know you wanted to start learning more about Earth cuisine, but I’m not sure why you want to start with chocolate. It’s not really a staple food.”

“Steve came by the other day with homemade chocolate for Aja.” He supplied. “She kept gushing that it was so romantic of him. Anyways, it looked good, so I wanted to try and make it.”

Eli deflated a bit. “So, you’re making chocolate to give to another person?”

“What? No. I tried to take some of Aja’s chocolate and she yelled at me for it, so I’m making this for me.” Krel paused. “And you, obviously, you should take half of it home. But we just can’t give any to Aja.”

“Oh, okay. Sounds good.” Eli smiled to himself and started going through the measuring cups too.

* * *

The recipe was only supposed to take about half an hour to prep, before 2 hours in the fridge to cool down. Unfortunately for Krel and Eli, Krel was a lot worse at baking than they had originally presumed.

“No, you have to- no, _no,_ not like that! _Please_ , be careful when you add it-!” Eli gave up on trying to get his friend to listen and opted to grab the electric mixer from his hands. The combination of cocoa powder, cocoa oil, and powdered sugar coating the whisks went flying.

Another one of Krel’s talents they had discovered this afternoon was that, no matter how big of a mess he made, he miraculously managed to avoid getting any of the mess on him.

Eli was not so lucky.

The shorter boy sighed, wiping the chocolate mixture from his glasses. He had resigned himself to his fate at this point. His upper torso was already dusted with a light coating of powdered sugar from when they had measured out all of their ingredients. The bottom of his shirt was partially soaked, courtesy of Krel spilling the pitcher of water as he tried to cross the kitchen with about 5 things in his other hands. There was a big coconut oil stain on his chest from Krel pushing the jar into his hands, not noticing that the lid wasn’t screwed on properly.

Now, his face was splattered with chocolate, pooling at his chin and dripping further onto his shirt.

“ _Kleb,_ Eli, I am so sorry-” Krel started, grabbing a dishcloth to help clean up. “I’ve been ruining everything since we started. I should have listened to you.” He said apologetically. He moved to wipe off some of the chocolate.

Eli flushed slightly and jerked away before he could make contact.

Krel frowned, lowering his arm. “Eli, I really am sorry.” _Was he that mad?_

“No, hold on.” Eli said in a pained tone of voice. “I told you I was going to help you make this chocolate, and I’m sticking to that.” He put the mixer down in the sink. Then he batted Krel’s second set of hands from idly playing with the stove’s burner controls. Krel gave a sheepish laugh; he hadn’t even noticed he was still doing that.

“But next time, when the recipe calls for hand mixing, don’t try and take shortcuts.” Eli scolded him. He paused for a second and cleared his throat, trying to seem more assertive. “Also, I know the polite thing to do as a guest is to help your host clean up, but I would appreciate if you cleaned up your own messes.”

Krel nodded, relieved that his friend wasn’t mad. He raised the dishcloth again, which made Eli turn pink and shake his head. He waved his hands in the air frantically. “No, no, I can clean myself up!” He pointed to the chocolate dripping from the ceiling. “But there’s no way I can help you with that.”

“Oh, right.” Krel looked up and shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’ll send the anti-gravity automated vacuum to clean it up later.” He retrieved the abandoned wooden spoon and started to mix the chocolate together again. Eli took a few steps backward and chose to peek out under the other boy’s arm for the rest of the time they baked, determined not to get messy again.

* * *

“So, you rigged your Roomba to be able to _fly?_ ” Eli stared at Krel as he finally put the chocolate molds in the fridge. There was still chocolate speckling his face, powdered sugar all over his neck, and his shirt was damp at best. However, true to the boy’s word, he had put aside his own sorry state and helped Krel finish making the chocolates first.

Krel returned his question with a quizzical look. “What’s a Roomba? Also, no, it doesn’t fly, it uses a complicated superconductor system to maintain a miniature anti-gravity field around itself. I thought it would be more effective if it could clean our windows as well as our floors.”

Eli snorted and clarified, “It’s the brand name for your automated vacuum.”

“Ah. I think I remember Steve calling it that before. Aja has taken to the nickname ‘Richard’, though I don’t know why.”

“…Richard?” He contemplated for a moment. “…Oh, I think I get it. Steve has a, um, funny nickname for his Roomba at home. He only named it that because it annoys Coach Lawrence. She’s probably using the ‘extended’ form of the name.” Eli made quotation marks with his fingers.

“What’s the short form?” Krel asked, still not getting it. Eli pretended not to hear and looked down at his phone. There was still a few hours before he had to go home for dinner.

“Hey, where’s your bathroom? Now we’re done with all the baking, I want to clean myself up a little, if that’s ok.” He grimaced down at his shirt. “Not sure what I’m going to do about this though.”

Krel pointed down the hallway to his shared bathroom with Aja. “I’ll grab you a hoodie or something to wear instead.”

“You have actual clothes? I thought your clothes were like, part of your holographic disguise.”

“They are. But Toby has introduced me to some Earth bands that I liked, and I decided to buy some of their merchandise.” He explained. “You might as well wear it home, too, instead of putting on your wet shirt again.” Krel was already walking towards his room at this point, and therefore missed the delighted look on his friend’s face.

He opened the bedroom door and headed to the closet, pulling out some options. Krel doubted that Eli would really care what the shirt would look like, but for some reason he suddenly felt very shy about his music choices. He had no idea what kind of music Eli listened to.

 _Best to pick something plain_ , he decided. He picked out a dark blue hoodie, bare except for a small patch stitched across the chest. Belatedly, he remembered that that was the first piece of band merch he had bought. He had mistakenly sized the hoodie for his (much larger) alien form rather than his human disguise. It wouldn’t fit Eli.

“Is that for me? I really love that band.”

Krel suppressed the urge to jump into the air and turned around. “Yes, here it is.” He said stiffly, handing it over. Too late to change now.

“Thanks so much!” Eli flashed a thousand-watt smile, temporarily blinding his friend. Krel didn’t understand why he was so excited, but he found himself smiling back anyways. It was just an article of clothing. Did Steve not occasionally lend him clothes too?

Eli tugged the hoodie on, flailing his arms around a bit before he managed to find the hood and stick his head through.

Krel immediately thought to himself, _he’s drowning in it._ Eli tried to adjust the sleeves, cuffing the ends once, twice; the sleeves still flopped over his hands. The hoodie had completely swallowed him. The bottom reached nearly to his knees, and the patch that was supposed to lie over his heart was closer to his stomach than anything else. Krel was suddenly keenly aware of their height difference. Even if he had been in his human form, he would be taller than Eli. How had he never noticed before?

It should have looked ridiculous. Eli certainly looked embarrassed about it. However, all Krel could think was that…. he looked really cute.

Eli reached one hand up to scratch his nose. _He has sweater paws,_ Krel noted, feeling like he was going to explode.

“Do you, um, have anything smaller to wear?” He asked tentatively. “I feel like I look silly.”

“No,” Krel said automatically. He was extremely grateful towards his past self of 5 minutes ago for putting all of his other clothing back into his closet. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to burn the image of Eli wearing this stupidly big hoodie into his mind. “Anyways, you look fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Eli replied, seemingly appeased.

He crossed the room and climbed onto Krel’s bed. He patted the spot besides him, taking out his phone. “Come here, I found this really funny video review about Astro Five. I was waiting for us to finish baking before I showed you- they pointed out literally all the same things you did! You can finally feel vindicated.” He giggled, and _kleb_ , that was cute too.

Kreli went to sit on the bed without a word. As Eli leaned in to show him the video, he offered a weak smile and hoped fervently that the other boy couldn’t hear his heart pounding.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to add a small part onto the end of this, where krel is teaching eli calculus, but im tired and heading into exams and dont know when ill get to post again so ill just save that for an extremely short next chapter!

Krel sighed for seemed like the hundredth time that hour. He raised his arm and checked his watch for what was _definitely_ the millionth time that hour. Still a half hour to go.

He put his book down, reluctantly concluding that no amount of reading could get him through this much longer. Somehow even “The Theory of the Riemann Zeta-function” had failed him now, and he had eagerly waited weeks for it to be processed by California’s unbelievably slow postal service. He looked out across the gym to where Steve and Eli were now practicing their rope climbing skills.

Krel had no idea how that could possibly count as “super important Creepslaying training”, which was how Eli had described the afternoon to him. Apparently, every Sunday Steve and Eli went down to the school for strength training, weapons training, and sometimes just to freestyle rap together? Steve insisted the last part was crucial for team morale. Krel didn’t get it, but he had told Aja that he would stop trying to provoke Steve on purpose, so he let it slide.

Coach Lawrence always lent them his key to the Arcadia High gym, which was definitely not allowed, but Coach would also do anything to make Steve like him a little more. Krel himself was stuck here because he had agreed to help Eli with his Advanced Calculus homework, and this was the only time they were both free.

Eli had promised him that he would go over to the Blanks’ house as soon as possible, but not to wait up for him in case their training went into overtime.

Stupidly, Krel had told him that he would just go to the school and wait for him there. He didn’t have anything better to do, and he figured that it would be the kind, socially acceptable response that he sometimes struggled to deliver.

Now, he was kicking himself for ever choosing to be nice. He always ended up going the extra mile for Eli, and right now, with too much time on his hands, he did _not_ want to unpack why that might be the case.

Krel carefully tucked his book into his backpack and zipped it tight. He descended the bleachers and walked over to Steve, who had shimmied back down to the bottom of the rope. Steve jumped off neatly, followed quickly by Eli backflipping off his rope onto the red mat below.

Krel blinked. Had he always been able to do that?

“Nice work, Pepperjack!” Steve slapped Eli’s hand in an aggressive high five. To his credit, Eli didn’t flinch and returned the compliment with just as much verve. “You too, bro! Your time was so fast!”

“We are KILLING it today!” Steve yelled. “Let’s finish on a high note with weapons training. I think you’re pretty good with your throwing stars at this point, but we could get better with using the bats. Oh, and we should work on our aerial maneuvers too.” Eli nodded eagerly, clearly hanging onto his every word.

Krel cleared his throat, trying to be as obvious as possible. When the pair were together for an extended amount of time, they tended to “bro out”, and it could be difficult to redirect their attention to anything other than their muscles and how cool they looked in black. “Uh, Eli, I was wondering if you would want to end your training early today…?”

His friend swiveled around to face him, brown eyes wide and full of guilt. “Oh! Yea, o-of course, we can go now if you want.”

Steve looked between the two of them and frowned. “If I remember right, Krel, you stole Eli from me last week to play video games and cut our alien movie marathon short.” He pointed out. “So, it’s only fair that he stays the extra half hour.”

“W-well, that is true… sorry about that…”

“Apology accepted.” Steve smiled benevolently at Eli and narrowed his eyes at Krel over the top of his head.

“Ugh, fine.” Krel conceded, shooting him a glare of his own. 

“Great, I’ll go get the baseball bats!” Eli grinned at both of them and raced towards the bleacher. Krel found himself smiling at his back as he retreated.

Steve gave him a knowing look.

“What?”

“Nothing. But I think you should watch what Eli can do, instead of going back and burying your nose in your nerd book. He’s been working really hard on this stuff.”

“Hm. What exactly are your ‘aerial maneuvers’, anyways? Are you two practicing cheerleading now, too?” It came out a little meaner than Krel intended. He really, _really_ did not like that look on Steve’s face. He had no business looking so smug.

“No, but we figured out that I can yeet Eli pretty high into the air if I want.” Steve replied matter-of-factly, rising above the bait. Krel did not know what ‘yeet’ meant, but he assumed it had something to do with throwing another person… so, cheerleading, as he had originally suspected. “Before it was just handy if we needed to get over a fence or something, but since he can use a bat now, it could actually be killer in a fight.”

“He couldn’t use a bat before?” Krel furrowed his brow.

Steve puffed out his chest a little, immediately becoming defensive over his friend. “Yea, and that’s normal! He’s like 5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, of course he couldn’t swing one.” He huffed. “But he’s gotten a lot stronger now, and maybe he’s still just using an aluminum bat, but he’ll work his way up to the wood ones soon enough.”

Krel opened his mouth to explain that he didn’t mean it as an insult, when Eli came bounding back with the bats in question, tucked into his backpack.

“Here you go!” He passed the wooden bat over to Steve. Steve accepted the weapon and settled naturally into a two-handed grip. He motioned for Eli to copy him. “See my hands, cheese slice?”

Eli nodded, sticking out his tongue slightly in concentration as he mimicked the blond.

“Give me a swing.” Steve prompted, and Eli did. Krel didn’t know exactly what Steve was looking for, but he must have seen something wrong, because he leaned in- close, _really_ close -to fix Eli’s grip. “See-” Steve tilted the end of the bat into the air. “-the degree you’re making here with your eye level? I think you keep overshooting that and it’s making it harder to control.”

“Oh, you’re right!” Eli said as he adjusted the bat in his hands.

“Okay, great. Hey, Krel, maybe you could throw some balls for him to hit? That way I can keep coaching at the same time.” Steve asked. Krel jerked his head up at the sound of his name; he had been focusing on how close they were standing to each other. The _last_ thing he wanted to do was enable Steve to keep his arms around Eli like that.

“No thanks.”

“No way!” Eli sputtered at the same time. Both boys turned to look at him in confusion.

“U-uh, I mean, I’m not that good at it yet.” He admitted, embarrassed. “I don’t want to bother you with throwing, like, a million balls before I can finally hit one. Let’s just move on to the maneuvers.”

Steve looked like he wanted to object, but Eli gave a little shake of his head. He paused, passed another quick look between his Krel and Eli, then lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “Ok, bro, whatever you want.” He stuffed both bats into the backpack and pulled out Eli’s bike helmet instead. 

“Safety first.” He said, tossing it to him.

Krel took a few steps back as Eli carefully strapped on his helmet and took off his glasses. He looked a lot more excited now. “Ready, bro!” He gave a thumbs up.

“Maneuver 1!” Steve called out, squatting down with both hands extended.

Things moved very fast after that.

Eli took off towards him, a blur of motion, as Steve put his hands together and hoisted his right leg up, propelling the smaller boy into the air. Krel’s jaw dropped. When Steve said he would “yeet” Eli, he assumed that meant maybe 2 or 3 feet into the air, not _ten._ And when had Eli become so graceful? He would never insult his friend’s physical abilities, but this was the same kid who regularly walked into walls because he had two left feet.

He had been impressed by the backflip before, but this was entirely different. Now, time seemed to slow down. Now, it was like he was flying through the air. Eli soared through the air, did a clean layout with two full twists, and stuck the landing behind Steve.

He doubled over, heaved out a gasp (out of giddiness rather than real exhaustion), and turned back to them. His cheeks were flushed a happy pink, eyes bright, a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead and chest puffed out with pride. A shy but very hopeful smile played on his lips. Krel quickly came to the unfortunate realization that he thought Eli was cute, even when sweaty _._

“YES!” Steve yelled, bounding over to affectionately ruffle his hair. “That’s what I’m talking about! Did you fucking _see_ how much height you got? And how long you were up there? You went up, like, all the way to the roof!”

Eli giggled and pushed him off. “No, Steve, I can’t see, I don’t have my glasses on.”

“Right, right, but it was fucking sick! Best you’ve ever done. Maybe because you had an extra special audience-” The brunette blushed and elbowed him in the stomach, which had an effect equivalent to elbowing a brick wall, but Steve backed off anyways. “Anyways, you did great. Right, Krel?”

Krel nodded, taking a moment to remember how to speak. “It was… really cool, Eli. I can’t believe you did that.” He gave him a genuine smile.

“Thanks! That means a lot, I-I’ve been practicing a lot, so I’m glad that it paid off!” He squeaked out.

“’Course he did! He’s the cheese slice!” Steve crowed. “Now sit your ass down and get ready for take 2! This guy can do front tucks, too!”

He nodded again, more slowly, and went to sit on the bleachers again. He supposed another half hour of watching Eli in his element wouldn’t be too bad. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blink and you'll miss it but im really trying to push for autistic krel and trans eli  
> also im sorry i know i didnt update for a while but i have exams for the next 2 weeks so um!!! bye again sorryy!!!!

In the end, they decided to go to Eli’s house. The original plan was to go back to the Tarrons’ house, since Eli’s moms could be a little overbearing, but then Steve had suggested they all go together because he wanted to see Aja, and, well, Krel had had enough by that point. He was sure that they would get nothing done if Steve and Aja were allowed to be around each other – the couple was notoriously loud. Eli mentioned that he had a whiteboard in his room, and though that paled in comparison to the hologram tablets Krel had at home, it still sealed the deal for him.

Eli had just taken his keys out to open the door when Natalie swung it open for him. Tall, slim, with a sprinkle of freckles across her narrow nose, she was the spitting image of Eli. Well, except for being tall, but Eli was on puberty blockers for a reason. And if Krel was being honest with himself, he was quite fond of their height difference.

“Boys!” Natalie cried out. She spread her arms wide in excitement, almost blocking the entire doorway. “Eli, you didn’t tell me that you were having friends over. I thought you were doing your… um, training with Steve today?” She gave him a quizzical look.

“Yea, Mom, but Krel promised to help me with calculus. His house was too loud to study.” Eli explained, sidestepping her easily and gesturing for Krel to follow him. Krel followed, watching Eli carefully as he took off his shoes and set his backpack down on the ground to pull out his math textbook. He did the same, then remembered that he was supposed to be a guest and should probably say something to Natalie.

“Uh, yes. I am here.” He said, somewhat stiffly. “Thank you for having me.”

“Oh, of course!” Natalie beamed in a way that he had seen Eli do a million times. Krel relaxed slightly. Maybe the calming effect of a Pepperjack smile was hereditary. “I’m always happy whenever Eli brings a friend home. I just wish he had told me in advance.” She shot Eli a dirty look. “I could have made you guys something to eat!”

“Mom, we’re fine.” Eli insisted. He tugged on Krel’s wrist and started pulling him up to the stairs. “I’m not even hungry.” He looked at Krel. “Are you hungry?”

“No?” Krel wasn’t sure what the right response was. He was, actually, a little bit hungry, but he would much rather eat the granola bars that he had packed in his bag rather than some sugary dessert that Natalie might make them. (The end product of their previous chocolate-making fiasco was a sullen discovery that he didn’t even like sweet things.) 

“Exactly!” Eli said. He paused halfway up the stairs. “Hey, where’s Meg?”

“She’s buying groceries. Honestly, Eli, I texted you this and I _asked_ if you wanted us to buy your special dinosaur oatmeal, you know, the one with the candy eggs-”

“Okay, Mom!” Eli’s voice rose in embarrassment. He practically dragged Krel to his room. “Krel doesn’t want to hear about this, and we have a lot of work to do, so, you know, we’re gonna go do that!” He almost slammed the door on impulse, then thought better of it and gently closed the door. He had learned his lesson by this point.

Krel looked around his friend’s bedroom. He had been here a few times before, but the collage of grainy photos, newspaper clippings, and haplessly strewn red thread on corkboard seemed to get bigger and more chaotic each time he visited. There were a few more photos of him and Aja now, in much clearer quality. A diagram of how a serrator worked. A whole new section on the Foo-Foos and their connection to the bounty hunters’ guild on the Moon.

He took a seat on Eli’s bed, making a face at the childish green alien print duvet. No matter how many times he told Eli that it was ridiculous, that no alien had big bulbous eyes and a pointy head like that, Eli just giggled and told Krel that at this point, he only displayed it to get a rise out of him.

Eli plopped down besides him and opened his textbook “So!” He pointed to the left page. “Let’s talk about equations of planes. I thought I understood them, and all the proj and perp stuff, but last week’s quiz marks did not agree with me.”

“Sure.” Krel took the book from him. “Do you have a whiteboard marker?”

“Yea, there’s a whole container on my desk.”

Krel walked over and selected a blue marker from the bunch. He paused, looking at the shelf above Eli’s desk. Last time they had hung out, it was home only to one framed photo of Eli, Natalie, and Megan. Now, there were photos of Eli and Steve, Eli and Toby, a big group photo including Aja, Mary, and Darci, and a selfie of him and Eli.

Honestly, he didn’t even remember taking the picture. The humans were all so obsessed with their phones, with Snapchat, and it always caught him off guard when they pulled him into a photo. He ended up making a completely blank face every time Mary pointed a camera at him, and then she would laugh and send it to everyone, and then they would laugh too and make it the group chat photo for the next week. For each time it happened, he understood that he probably should have been embarrassed, but truthfully it just made him happy to see everyone laugh.

In this photo, Krel was actually looking at the camera. Even more surprisingly, he was smiling. He and Eli both have their arms over each other’s shoulders. He couldn’t place when or where they took it, but he desperately wished he could remember.

“Hey, I like all the photos you put up.” He said to Eli.

Eli’s head shot up from where it was buried in his calculus notes. “Oh, right! The photos!” He smiled at his friend. “I figured it was time I put up some stuff. I mean, this summer has been so crazy, but, really fun too. I wanted to commemorate it.”

“Maybe I’ll do the same.” Krel eyed the photo of him and Eli again. He wanted to ask what it was from, or maybe even ask for a copy, but he felt like a bad friend for not remembering in the first place. He would have to ask if Aja remembered.

“Anyways, let’s start.” He turned back to the whiteboard. “So, before we review equation of a plane, let’s make sure you understand what the cross-product is…”

\--

“I don’t get it.” Eli stared blankly at the whiteboard. “I mean, I get it, we have different equations of a plane. The cross product gives us a normal vector. But, like…?” He gestured helplessly at the textbook sitting in his lap. “How am I supposed to know what the shortest distance between a line and plane is?”

“That’s why you need to know the projections and perpendiculars.” Krel said. He was trying to be patient, really, but he was reaching his limits.

“And what about the shortest distance between two planes?” Eli held up his quiz, stabbing a finger towards question 3, which was covered in angry red scribbles.

“You can also do that with projections and perpendiculars.”

“But how do I know what to do? There’s like, 30 variations on this problem.” Eli said, holding onto the quiz papers tightly. He glared down at them in frustration.

Krel had to agree; there were a lot of different ways that Miss Janeth could torture her students with vector calculus. On the other hand, he knew Eli was a hardworking, intelligent person who was just as dedicated to his studies as he was to Creepslaying (and that was saying something). He had hit a temporary roadblock here, but he would get it soon enough, even if Krel had to painstakingly rehash his cross-product lesson for the third time. He took the papers from Eli and shuffled them around in his hands. _Yes_ , he concluded after examining each question, _this will definitely be doable after some more practice._

Without thinking much of it, he replied, “I don’t understand what the problem is. I thought you were supposed to be smart?”

The room went silent. Krel looked up from the quiz, confused.

Eli’s face crumpled. His eyes started to water- a telltale sign that he was about to cry, despite his rapid blinking to keep the dam from bursting. Krel realized his mistake in an instant.

He shot off the bed and crouched in front of Eli, shaking his hands in a panic. “No, no, no!” He said desperately. “That’s not what I meant! I- I wasn’t calling you stupid, I would never do that.” He pleaded to Seklos to dry Eli’s eyes. He wouldn’t be able to bear the guilt of making his friend cry.

The shorter boy just sniffled. Krel’s heart wrenched at the sound.

“Listen.” Krel pushed the quiz back into his hands. “What I _meant_ is that this won’t be a problem for you, because you are smart.” He affirmed. “You’re taking a university-level class in Grade 10! It’s called Advanced Calculus for a reason. It is natural not to pick things up right away.”

“But you’re smart, attentive, and most importantly, _resilient_. You can do this. Please don’t be discouraged. I am confident that you can be the best student in this class. You just need some more practice, and I will… try to be more considerate when I’m helping you. I’m sorry about that.”

Eli rubbed at his eyes with one hand. He looked down at the quiz, considering it, then up at Krel, considering his words. “Okay.” He let out a shaky sigh.

Krel let out an even bigger sigh of relief. 

“...Okay.” He picked up the whiteboard marker. “Let’s try this again. Maybe it’ll help if I draw the diagrams again?”

“Oh, oh, wait!” Eli said, and raised his pencil. “Let me try and draw them in my notebook, and you tell me if I’ve got it or not. I think it will help to practice drawing the planes and lines at different spots so I can see how the projections change.”

Krel nodded and watched him dutifully.

Eli sketched for a few moments confidently, pausing only when he got to drawing the perpendicular. He put the end of his pencil in his mouth and gnawed on it slightly. His eyebrows furrowed in concentration and his nose scrunched up cutely. Krel noticed, for the first time, how long his eyelashes were, how they drew attention to and prettily framed his deep brown eyes. They were sitting close enough that Krel could count the number of freckles dusting his cheeks- _wait._ Wasn’t he supposed to be looking at the diagram? And did he just think of Eli as cute, _again_?

Eli finished the drawing and adjusted his glasses, clearly proud of his work. He held it up for Krel.

“Does this look okay?” He asked.

“Yea, that looks about right.” Krel said, mouth dry. Maybe he was starting to develop a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i literally cant remember what i learned in high school BUT i learned about proj's and perp's in first year uni so that's what they're studying. @prof shaw sorry i laughed at your suspenders, your lessons were very useful


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aja: krel let me do your makeup bc i dont want to mess up my friends beautiful faces  
> krel: am i a joke to you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for all the nice comments!!

“Nooo!” Eli whined. He leaned forward, mashing the buttons on his remote desperately, as if that would somehow give him a speed boost. “Come on, come on! You can still make it!”

It was no use. King Boo zipped past him, and Eli swerved wildly to avoid being hit by the giant animated bullet. Triumphant music blared from the TV screen, cutting to the winner’s lineup: King Boo in first place, and Princess Peach in second. 

He threw down his remote with a loud groan. It bounced harmlessly off the bedspread and onto the floor. “Alright, I swear I’m not normally a sore loser, but this is ridiculous.” He turned and pointed an accusing finger at his friend. “You swear you didn’t hack the game somehow?”

Krel put down his remote and tried not to smirk. It didn’t work, so he decided to indulge in winning at something for once. “Sorry, but I can’t help that I’m better at video games than you, Eli.” He said, looking very much not sorry.

“You were literally terrible at them in the beginning of summer.” Eli complained. He pouted at the screen, mourning his loss as Peach waved to the crowds on her second-place podium. “And how do you always manage to get the bullet? You start out in last place for the 1st lap and then snake me at the last second.” He grumbled.

“Guess I’m just lucky.” Krel teased him. “We could do a 9th rematch, if you think it’s necessary.” Eli always looked cu- no, _not_ cute, he mentally scolded himself. Eli always pulled a funny face when he got flustered, and it was endearing. In like, a friend way. Also, he had suffered through many months of getting his butt kicked at Mario Kart by Eli, Steve, and Toby alike, so he felt that he was owed bragging rights now

“Ugh.” Eli rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “I need a break from this, though, my eyes are starting to hurt.” To prove his point, he took off his glasses and rubbed at them. He blinked owlishly for a second or two, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light in the room. _Wow_. They really had been playing for a while; he hadn’t even noticed the sun go down.

“Would it be okay to go get a snack?” He asked, recalling that they had dinner more than 3 hours ago.

“Alright, fine, let’s go brave the beast.” Krel stood up and turned off the TV.

The ‘beast’, in this case, was the gaggle of girls currently occupying their kitchen and living room. When Aja had eagerly told him that she wanted to invite her friends over a sleepover, Krel had tried to refuse, but it was a fruitless effort. She was stubborn in her request and he knew it would be unreasonable to keep arguing, so he had retaliated by inviting Eli over. The end result was a house full of way too many teenagers, the Blanks being deactivated for the night (he feared they might start malfunctioning around a crowd), and both Vex and Zadra excusing themselves for the evening, not wanting to deal with any of the noise or mess.

They exited Krel’s room and walked through the corridor. The kitchen was now thankfully empty; the girls had migrated over to the living room. Krel opened the fridge, keenly aware that there was nothing healthy inside, and that he was not capable of cooking them anything. He closed the door and scanned the cabinets instead, trying to remember their current snack inventory. “How about popcorn and a movie?” He suggested in a low voice. He felt a bit dumb about it, but he didn’t want to attract the girls’ attention.

“That sounds good.” Eli agreed, whispering back.

“What movie?”

“Um, I don’t know. Whatever you want.”

“We can watch an alien movie, if you want.”

“Really?” Eli squeaked, then cleared his throat and tried to whisper again. “You liked when we watched Guardians of the Galaxy, right? So, let’s watch the sequel. I think the soundtrack is even better than in the first one.”

That did seem like a good choice, and he nodded in approval. They both moved to open the leftmost cabinet at the same time. Krel’s brain short-circuited as their hands touched briefly. “O-oh, sorry!” Eli whispered, and took a step back. “It’s your house, of course, you go for it-”

“It’s fine.” He replied quickly. He didn’t want Eli to think he was upset that he had touched him. They were both aware that Krel had strict rules about his personal space, but those didn’t apply to Eli, and they never would. He was always happy to be around him. He tried to give him a reassuring smile, and Eli shyly returned the gesture.

They smiled at each other for a little too long. It was a silly moment, getting flustered about reaching for the same thing, but Krel felt butterflies in his stomach and his cheeks started to heat up anyways. That couldn’t be good.

He ripped his gaze away and looked at the couch. Aja and co hadn’t spared them a glance so far. He loved his sister, he did, but she was a handful when she was with her friends. He just wanted some time alone to spend with Eli- mainly so he could figure out this “problem” of his, but that was besides the point. Aja was so friendly and easy to get along with, that sometimes it felt like she wanted his friends for her own, too.

“Oh, little brother!”

 _Fuck_ , Krel’s mind helpfully supplied. Steve’s cursing habits crept further into his vocabulary every day.

“Little brother, if you’re looking for popcorn, we finished all of it!” Aja called. She propped herself up on her elbows and peered over the back of the couch. “Well, we microwaved all the popcorn, anyways. We still have some here, if you want it.”

“Yea!” Shannon turned from her seat on the floor and held up the remaining bowl of popcorn. She was surrounded by a mess of pillows and fluffy blankets. Her brown hair floated slightly around her face, with a few sections sticking out from the top of her head. Krel suspected that she had accidentally fallen asleep in the blankets at some point. Mary was lying beside her, texting away. Shannon continued, “You guys should join, we’re watching Mean Girls right now.”

“Again?” Krel gave Aja a blank look, stifling down his frustration. Of course, she didn’t know that she had just broken… whatever weird moment he had been sharing with Eli. There was no reason for him to be annoyed with her. “You watched that last Saturday.”

“No, that was Mamma Mia.” She corrected him. “The pretty blonde actress is in both movies, though.” She seemed proud that Krel had remembered at least that much.

“Her name is Amanda Seyfried.” Darci’s voice rang out, but she didn’t raise herself above the couch so that they could see her.

Eli laughed. “I’ve seen Mean Girls like, a million times, so I’m going to have to pass.”

“Oh, but we’re going to watch Devil Wears Prada next!” Now Darci’s round, smiling face popped up. Her hair was wrapped in some sort of silky fabric, though a few black tendrils had escaped from the sides. “Have either of you guys seen it?”

“No.” Krel said slowly, and Eli shook his head too. “But we have movie plans, too.” He pointedly turned his back on Aja and looked at their fridge again. “Eli, how about ice cream? I think we have mint chocolate chip.” He suddenly remembered.

Eli lit up. “My favourite! Hey, maybe my luck is changing?” He said to Krel, grinning. “I might have to rematch you in Mario Kart after all.” Krel didn’t bother telling him that he knew that mint chip was his favourite flavour; he made Zadra buy a few pints last week so he could try it out for himself. Eli generally had good taste in music and movies, so the logical assumption would be that his palate was equally as sophisticated.

Mary chose that moment to finally insert herself into the conversation. “Wait, I thought we were going to do makeovers after Mean Girls!” She put her phone down and shuffled around in the sea of blankets to face Aja. She prompted her, “Remember? You said you wanted to try out makeup for once, and I brought all my eye shadow palettes, and Darci brought all her lipsticks, and Shannon brought her concealer because she’s the only other white girl we know.”

Shannon snort-laughed loudly at that and punched her in the shoulder. Mary shot her a giddy sort of grin and lightly pushed her back into the pillows. “Hey, you know I love you, but you said yourself that you literally don’t own any other makeup products.”

“Yea, I did say that.” Shannon admitted, lying flat on the floor now. She pouted at Mary with big, faux-sad doe eyes. “I thought you were going to do _my_ makeup though?”

“My makeup services are in high demand right now, take a number.” Mary deflected, looking away. She grabbed the nearest pillow and reached over to place it on Shannon’s face, cutting the other girl off before she could start to complain. Shannon started laughing again, from underneath her, and Mary backed up a little. She was wearing the same giddy look. Krel might have been imagining it, but he thought he saw a blush rise to her cheeks. Huh. When had that happened?

“Hey, I called dibs on doing Aja’s makeup when we were in the car!” Darci pointed at Mary. “You’re going to try and give her some kind of crazy eyeliner look that she’s not ready for. This is supposed to be an opportunity to teach, not scare them off.” She insisted.

“I’m unappreciated in my time.” Mary huffed.

“I don’t mind a crazy eyeliner.” Shannon’s voice was muffled under the pillow.

Mary took it off and blinked down at her. “You wouldn’t?” Krel recognized the nervous, but hopeful note in her voice and felt his own heart squeeze. In an instant, he was uncomfortably aware of his own feelings for a certain someone in the room.

“Sounds like you guys have your own plans.” Krel said to Aja, taking out two bowls and spoons for him and Eli. He got out the mint chip ice cream from the freezer and started to scoop some out. “I think we’ll stick with our ice cream and go back to my room.”

“Wait!” Aja pleaded with him. “You two have been holed up there this whole time. Don’t you want to spend time with your dear sister?” The guilt trip was a classic move. He could already feel his resolve wavering. “Also, I was just thinking…” She glanced over at her friends. “So Darci is doing my makeup, and Mary will do Shannon-” This particular word choice left both girls bright pink, for some reason. “-but I want to practice, too, and I don’t want to mess up their beautiful faces. Can I do your makeup instead, little brother?”

Krel’s resolve hardened to steel. “Absolutely not.”

“Please!” Aja cried. “I’ll spend the next week at Steve’s house instead of bringing him here!”

Oh, that was tempting. However, he was confident that Aja’s precision with a makeup brush was vastly less than her precision with a serrator. He didn’t mind when Mary took funny photos of him for the group chat, but he wasn’t about to subject himself to being painted to look like a clown.

“Still no.” He shook his head.

Shannon piped up. “Eli, could I do your makeup?”

“Would I be able to wear my glasses afterwards?” He asked in way of response.

“No, you’d probably get makeup on them, but…” She hesitated, sensing that she was about to lose her potential client. “But you look way cuter without them on!” Mary supplied. _Not true,_ Krel thought to himself. There was nothing cuter than how Eli always adjusted his glasses after he just figured something out.

Eli thought about it for a moment. He shrugged. “Sure. Just let me eat my ice cream first.”

“Ha!” Aja jumped on this small victory. “If Eli is doing it, you should let me too!”

Krel scowled at her, and also sent a death glare to Eli. He was feeling very betrayed. Eli smiled apologetically, equally feeling very much like a traitor. He tried to broker a peace, suggesting, “Aja, what if you just painted Krel’s nails instead? That’s a lot tamer.”

“What colour?” Aja asked warily.

“Black.” Krel replied.

“But I just bought a pink holo!”

“How about blue?” Eli mediated. Both siblings narrowed their eyes at each other, considering the compromise. “Fine,” Aja said reluctantly and Krel made a small noise of assent. 

“I still expect a Palchuk-free zone next week.” He warned, taking his bowl of ice cream and going to sit in front of the couch. He started eating and eyed Aja as she laid out the different shades of blue nail polish the girls had pooled together.

Shannon squealed and made a spot for Eli to sit in between her and Mary. She pushed away the popcorn bowl, long forgotten, and Mary’s phone as well. “Can I paint your nails, too?” She asked, eyes shining.

“Uh, yea, sure.” Eli replied, very unused to the attention. After a moment he added, “If you have anything green that would be cool.” He didn’t want to be fooled into wearing anything too flashy.

Mary scanned the mountain of polishes and fished out something mint green. “How about this?”

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Shannon said approvingly. She shuffled through the pile of makeup palettes. “I think we should stick with a lot of warm colours, maybe some purple, and- hey, this glitter is really pretty too, that would look nice on the lid.” She selected a mini palette containing a few shades of blinding gold, silver, and bronze. Mary shook her head and pushed it out of the lineup. “No, that one is more yellow than gold. Let’s try this.” She pulled something else out that looked, in Eli’s opinion, virtually identical.

“Guys, it’s Eli’s look!” Darci scolded them. She was working on filing Krel’s nails. At her side, Aja was trying to get him to agree to the sparkly glitter polish she wanted instead of the plain pastel blue he preferred. “You have to ask him what _he_ wants.”

“Oh, right.” Mary gestured to the small spread of products they had agreed on so far. “Is this stuff okay?”

Eli gave a small nod, feeling slightly overwhelmed. He took a small spoonful of his ice cream, watching as Shannon and Mary resumed picking out what they wanted. He wasn’t sure when this had become a joint project, but it seemed like they were having fun, so he didn’t complain.

* * *

“Krel, you can’t move around so much. You’ll ruin your nails. They need more time to dry.” Aja told him for what seemed like the millionth time.

“But I’m just on my phone!” Krel protested. He was looking up the dangers of holographic nail polish. In the end, he had conceded and agreed to the bright blue colour Aja had wanted. Honestly, it turned out nice, and he didn’t mind it that much, but the glitter was so _distracting_. He felt like if he stepped into the sun, the sparkles would blind him instantly (or possibly reflect towards a nearby troll and turn them to stone). Surely there had to be some negative health repercussions.

“You’re going to mess it up!” She snatched his phone from him. Krel tried to grab it back without touching her clothes or the furniture around him, which was easier said than done. Darci had been very proud of her work before she went to assist Mary and Shannon with their own beauty project, and truthfully, he wanted to maintain it. The two siblings tussled for a few moments before Shannon caught their attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” She announced, waving her hands at them. “Please let me present my _magnum opus_.” She moved out of the way and beckoned for Darci and Mary to do the same, revealing Eli’s final look.

“Wow!” Aja exclaimed. “Eli, you look so good!”

That wasn’t how Krel would describe it. There was a word on the tip of his tongue, one that he desperately wanted to say out loud to Eli, but there were too many other people here, and he lacked the courage to make his feelings known. Of course, Eli looked cute. He always did, and Krel was tired of denying it to himself. He was cute- whether he was wearing a hoodie that was way too big for him, or sweaty after training for hours, or frustrated by a particularly hard math problem, or here, effortlessly pulling off several pounds of eye makeup even though he had never worn it before.

Krel liked him. He had a big, fat crush on Eli, despite having _never_ liked anyone else in his life before, and never even considering that he would ever like someone that wasn’t from Akiridion-5. The realization was both liberating and incredibly fatiguing at the same time. He’d been dancing around the truth for so long he didn’t quite know what to do about it.

Eli gave him an anxious look, searching for approval, and Krel realized he had been staring.

“You look really… nice.” He finally settled on his words.

“Yea? You don’t think it’s too much?” Eli went to touch his glasses nervously, then remembered he wasn’t wearing them and quickly put his hand down.

“Too much?” Mary scoffed. “Darci wouldn’t even let me use any highlighter!” She seemed miffed about having her artistic genius stifled. Shannon put a placating hand on her shoulder.

“We didn’t want to cover up Eli’s freckles.” She explained to Aja and Krel. “No highlighter, and we didn’t use a lot of concealer, either. I think the blush makes his freckles pop, though.” She noted with a smile. “Which was the whole point, since they’re so cute.”

Eli looked embarrassed. “Come on, Shannon.”

Krel had to agree; the pink lightly dusting Eli’s cheekbones did make his freckles stand out. He studied him a little longer, unaware of how the other boy squirmed under his gaze. Mary and Shannon’s collaboration on the eyeshadow had turned out very pretty. Brown and purple shades were blended together artfully in the crease, complimented by a gold glitter on the lid and a light cream colour dabbed in the inner corner. Darci had done a very thin liner and a little mascara to finish off the eye look. She had also applied a nude-pink lipstick to Eli’s lips and shiny lip gloss on top.

He was certain that the girls had probably done a million other things to bring the whole look together, with how they had previously been bickering about which moisturizer to use, but he wasn’t perceptive enough to notice. He could tell that it had taken a lot of work, but altogether, it still looked very natural. Eli still looked like Eli. Krel liked it, a lot. He wanted to remember this.

“Can I take a photo?” He asked suddenly.

Eli was caught-off guard. “W-what, of me?”

“Can we take it in like, an hour?” Mary said absentmindedly. In the time Krel had spent unabashedly staring at Eli, the rest of the girls had moved on. Shannon was lying back in the blankets with her hands folded on her lap, as Mary leaned over to do her makeup. Similarly, Aja had moved back to the couch and was discussing palette options with Darci.

Mary carefully moved Shannon’s bangs out of the way and started to apply an eyeshadow primer. “We need to do our own looks before we can take a group photo.” She told Krel. “You guys can go back and watch your alien movie, or whatever, and then come back when we’re done.”

“Unless you want to watch Devil Wears Prada with us now?” Aja asked hopefully.

“Pass.” Krel said, politely this time. He had been wrong about the makeovers; they _were_ fun, but he still would prefer to watch a movie about a wrinkly grey alien than a movie about high fashion. “But it was fun hanging out with you guys.” He told the girls sincerely. Aja smiled widely.

“Yea!” Eli supported him. “It was super fun.” He got to his feet, pivoting in the direction of Krel’s room.

“Hey, wait.” Krel’s hand shot out and circled around Eli’s smaller wrist. The brunet looked down at him in confusion. Krel swallowed and steeled his nerves. He wasn’t ready to confess, but… he was ready to make a few baby steps. He gently tugged on his wrist again, and Eli sat down obediently. “Before, I didn’t mean to take a group photo.” He clarified. “I wanted us to take a- uh, what do you call it? A selfie together.”

“Oh. Oh, okay!” Eli beamed at him. “Yea, let’s do it.” He reached for his phone lying on the coffee table.

He was interrupted by Aja tossing Krel’s confiscated phone back into his lap. Krel looked over in confusion.

“Krel’s phone has a lot more storage. Let him take this one.” Aja’s eyes sparkled knowingly. Annoyingly, it was the same look that Steve had given him at the gym. Krel could now put together that they had figured out his feelings for Eli before he did for himself. That was embarrassing, but he was grateful for the support all the same.

“Thanks.” He nodded and opened the camera app. He leaned in besides Eli, unsure of how close he should get. Conversely, Eli had gained a newfound confidence after the cabinet incident.

“Dude, you need to get in closer.” Eli pulled the other boy flush to his side. He placed one his hand behind him and another behind Krel for balance. Their hands touched again, and Krel waited for Eli to move his hand away, but he didn’t. He just left it there, gently resting on top of Krel’s. Eli tilted their faces together and towards the camera. He put on a huge smile and bumped Krel lightly with his shoulder, waiting for him to do the same. “Okay, take it.”

Krel changed his phone background to their selfie the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i started writing this fic i hadnt even considered mary/shannon but u know that one picture of the girl sitting completely on top of her friend and leaning over to do her makeup??? that was my inspiration. good god these girls are crushing on each other
> 
> also i love the idea that eli is a conventionally weird person who listens to, like, 100 gecs and lemon demon and watches super obscure alien movies and krel is like FUCK this kid has such good taste i cant not be in love with him


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a bit of meme,, they talk about silly things bc when i was 16 i talked about silly things. also krel is really starting to pick up english expletives hehe
> 
> comments are super appreciated!!

“How can you NOT believe that Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA?” Eli demanded. “It’s so obvious. You know that like 70% of the country thinks there was some kind of plot behind the killings?” His voice got higher, cutting through the sound of Shane and Ryan talking onscreen.

“Is this Kennedy really so important that he would be assassinated by someone from his own country?” Krel countered. “That doesn’t make any sense to me. I doubt one of his political enemies would do something as radical as kill him on American soil.” He crossed his arms and made his final assertion. “It was a lone shooter.”

Eli snatched the small remote off his pillow and paused the Buzzfeed Unsolved video, which had been blown up to fit the length and width of his whiteboard.

Out of the goodness of his own heart (and having some free time to kill), Krel had built Eli a small projector so that they could play videos on a wide screen. The gift had been well-received with fanfare and exclamations of ‘you are the best friend in the whole _galaxy_ , Krel, this is so cool, thank you!’, among other things. Though it was nice having enough space to fully sprawl out on the bed, he did occasionally miss the times when they sat squished next to each other, shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee, as they watched old movies on Eli’s small battered laptop.

“No!” Eli was firm, tossing the remote to the side and turning to stare Krel down. “There’s literally no way. Next you’re going to tell me you think the magic bullet theory is real.” He scoffed.

“I don’t think that.” Krel shook his head, and Eli smiled triumphantly. The smile slipped off his face as Krel continued, “But have you considered that his head just…” He waved his arms around abstractly. “Did that?”

“By ‘that’, you mean exploding?” Eli said in disbelief.

“Yes. There’s a parasitic worm that lives on Atmos, a planet filled with noxious fumes and very little breathable air. It’s in a galaxy far away from Earth, but it’s been accidentally transported on intergalactic cruisers as an invasive species before.” Krel informed him. “It enters most easily through your nose, but it can also tunnel through the skin at your wrist and make its way up to your brain. It lives for 29 keltons and lays its eggs, which explode upon hatching. Then your brain explodes.”

Eli’s face matched the green in his shirt. “I can’t believe you just ruined this for me.” He moaned, putting his head into his hands. “God, that’s so gross.”

Krel patted him sympathetically on the back like he had seen Coach do with Steve a million times. “My bad, buddy.” He echoed the older man’s words, hoping it would be effective, but not too effective that Eli would start playing the video again. There were some interesting parts of history on Earth, but the mystery and drama surrounding American politics- Kennedy, Hoffa, and so on -were not included. He preferred the nature and science docuseries that Eli found for them.

He reached for the remote. “So, let’s table this discussion and put on National Geographic?” He asked hopefully.

“Why, so you can put on a documentary about parasitic worms?” Eli looked at him suspiciously.

“No.” Krel lied, as he switched from Youtube to Google on the projected screen. He started to type ‘Zombie Parasites’ into the search bar.

“Krel, please.” Eli begged. “I can’t stomach it. What about something true crime?”

Krel wrinkled his nose. “How can you stomach all that blood and gore and not anything about brain fungi? At least the fungi aren’t trying to purposefully kill anything. It’s just part of their nature.”

Eli turned a little bit greener. “Alright, fine.” He relented. “No true crime or parasites. Could I just talk about one of my own theories? I’ve been working on it for a while now, and I think it’s pretty solid.”

Krel begrudgingly turned off the projector. That did sound tamer than an explicit video about Jack the Ripper’s killings, but it was still a compromise. While Eli was one of the smartest humans Krel knew, he still fell victim to a lot of conspiracy theories. The ones he came up with himself, though slightly more grounded in reality, were highly implausible. He gave a reluctant nod to continue, ready to receive a Ted Talk on some unknown cryptid or crop circle in the middle of Missouri that could easily be explained away by common alien activity.

“Yes!” Eli cheered. He bounced off the bed, grabbing a marker from his desk. He wiped the whiteboard off with his hand and cleared his throat self-importantly. “Let’s talk about boys!” He announced. Krel choked on his own spit and sat up straighter. He fervently prayed Eli wouldn’t notice, but the other boy was observant as always.

“Um… I mean, u-unless that’s not okay?” He lowered the marker. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, of course it’s okay.” Krel said smoothly. He mentally congratulated himself for not stuttering or speaking too quickly. He was not about to let another miscommunication slide by. He was prepared this time. “Why would I be uncomfortable? I was just surprised because I thought you were going to talk about cryptids. This sounds much more interesting.” He cringed slightly at his own words. Sure, he didn’t sound nervous this time, but that was _way_ too overeager.

When Eli came out to him, it had been a two for one deal; that he had started transitioning in high school, AND that he liked boys. Krel had only recently determined that he liked boys- and that he was, like, capable of having a crush on another person at all. This was all a foreign concept to him. He didn’t want to tell Eli about his sudden discovery because that would just lead to Eli asking how he knew, and then he would have to confess his crush, and it would just be a huge mess that he wasn’t ready for.

Despite all of that, he still wanted Eli to know that he wasn’t judging him. That he was comfortable hearing Eli talk about why he liked boys, which boys he liked, whatever. It might even be helpful for Krel to put a label to his feelings.

Krel remembered a human gesture he had seen Toby make before and tried to do the same. He released his human disguise so he could use all four arms to do it.

Encouraged by his thumbs up, Eli smiled briefly and forged on.

In big, blocky letters he wrote ‘ATTRACTION’ on the board. “Let’s talk about attraction.” Eli began, too formally for a kid wearing oversized glasses and patterned alien socks, standing in a room whose walls were plastered with various nerdy movie posters. (He had bought the socks last week, to match his bedspread that Krel already hated so much.)

“What makes someone attractive?” He asked. “Is it because of their personality? Or their looks?” He drew arrows pointing to the words ‘PERSONALITY’ and ‘LOOKS’. “Personality is really, really complicated. There’s a lot of things to consider, like, do opposites really attract? Or is it unhealthy to like someone that disagrees with you about everything? What does it say about us if we like someone that’s never been nice to us?”

“I’m gonna ignore personality for now, but don’t worry, I’ll come back to it.” Eli shifted his weight and circled ‘LOOKS’. “It’s way easier to categorize the different ways that people can be attractive. And, disclaimer, I don’t know about girls… but I think I’ve cracked the code for boys.” He said very seriously. 

He turned his back to Krel and started writing something down. Meanwhile, Krel had retreated to his own mind, turning over the initial question in his head. What makes someone attractive? When had he actually started to like Eli? It seemed like all this happened because he thought he was cute, but was that really true? He had always paid more attention to Eli, talked to him more than anyone else, and, embarrassingly, sometimes made up excuses (usually throwing Aja under the bus for being too loud at home) just to hang out. So, it must have been attraction to his personality over anything else.

Yes, that made sense. Eli was kind, attentive, and quick-witted. He was always quick to offer help to Krel, even for silly things like teaching him how to make chocolate. He could keep up when Krel went on his tangents about science or Akiridion technology, and if he was too far behind, he would give Krel space while he worked. He was especially patient when Krel was slow to pick up on a social cue or some part of human culture he didn’t understand. That had probably helped him most in the transition to living on Earth.

Eli always told him how cool Akiridion-5 seemed, and how glad he was that they were friends, because he got to have one foot in a world of aliens and space travel that he never would have experienced otherwise. Krel wanted to tell him that it was the other way around, that Eli had completely changed his perspective about Earth. Those feelings, though- about belonging, about finally having friends for himself -they were rawer than Krel’s feelings for Eli. He wasn’t sure if he could ever express his gratitude properly, and it might freak the other boy out if he did.

For now, he would show his gratitude in dumb ways like this- sitting through his friend’s speech about how attractive boys were, just to make him feel seen.

Eli continued, not noticing that his audience of one was zoned out. “There are 3 categories of looks for guys.” He stepped away from the board, showing a new table with 3 columns. “There are cute guys, good-looking guys, and hot guys.” He pointed to each column as he listed off the types.

“Every single guy fits into one of these categories.” He said confidently. “You can define them differently, like maybe use the word ‘handsome’ instead of good-looking, but it’s still the same vibe. And no guy can fit into more than one category.” He paused and looked at Krel expectantly. Krel realized he was waiting for input and snapped his head up guiltily.

“Right. Okay.” He stared at the columns on the whiteboard, very much not getting it. He had never given much thought to the different _ways_ a boy could be attractive. Wasn’t there was just… cute? He racked his brain, trying to think. Eli was cute. He couldn’t think of any other boys that were cute, though.

In fact, he couldn’t think of any other boys who had ever grabbed his attention. There was just Eli.

…Maybe he didn’t have enough references. “Could you give an example?”

“Sure.” Eli nodded like he had been expecting the question. “Someone like Jason Momoa would probably go in ‘hot’, Shawn Mendes would go in ‘cute’, and Paul Rudd in ‘handsome’.” He rattled the names off with a practiced ease. Krel could tell he had spent a lot of time thinking about this, which was somehow endearing. Only Eli would prepare notes in advance for a goofy presentation he was giving in the privacy of his own room.

“Uh…” He couldn’t picture any of the people listed. “And these are people in our class?”

Eli looked momentarily appalled. “No, they’re celebrities.” He gave a small shake of his head, rearranging his facial expression into something more neutral. “That was my bad. I forgot about audience design. Do you want me to use people from our class?”

“No.” Krel said honestly. “I don’t know many of their names.”

“Okay, what if I use my past cru-” He stopped and almost bit his tongue, blushing furiously. “Um, past _colleagues_. No- what am I saying, I-I meant current colleagues. I mean… like, our friend group.” He said hurriedly, too fast for Krel to understand the mistake he almost made. “Would that work?”

“Sure.”

Eli raised his marker to the ‘HOT’ column and hesitated for a second. He braced himself and wrote down a name quickly.

“Steve?” Krel read aloud, a little incredulously. He couldn’t help but feel annoyed. He thought back to when he interrupted their Creepslayerz training, and the emotions broiling in his stomach as he’d watched Steve adjust Eli’s bat grip. It was jealousy, he realized, and apparently for a good reason. “Steve.” He repeated, voice flat. “You think Steve is hot.”

Of all the people he would have to compete with… well, no, that wasn’t true. Steve was happily dating Aja. That didn’t make it any less annoying that he had beat Krel at a game neither of them realized they were playing, up until now. Krel briefly considered joining Aja at her next work out session. Was Eli into that?

“I think, objectively, most people would find Steve hot.” Eli said carefully. Despite being pink in the face, he refused to back down. “At the very least, the girls in our class would agree with me.” He tactfully avoided eye contact with Krel and turned back to the board. He put down Jim’s name in the ‘GOOD-LOOKING’ category.

Krel had never really talked to Jim, but he knew he was a very brave, compassionate person. They would probably get along better than how he got along with Steve. Regardless, he was starting to feel jealous.

“You know, I don’t know if it’s nice to judge other people’s appearances.” Krel said, trying not to sound petulant.

Eli paused in the middle of writing down the next name. It began with a ‘K’, but he quickly erased it and spun around to face Krel before he could see. He gave him a dubious look. “But you said you were okay with it! And I’m not saying anything bad – I love these guys.” He protested. “I’m just showing my appreciation.”

“Would you still be saying that if I told the group chat?” Krel replied, grasping at straws. He would never purposefully embarrass Eli, of course; he was just looking for a swift topic change. He wanted to be supportive of his friend, but not at the expense of his own fragile feelings.

“Ugh, please don’t.” Eli rolled his eyes, unbothered. “Steve doesn’t need to inflate his ego more.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll give them the Ted Talk later. Mary will probably want to categorize the whole class.”

He tapped the white board. “Anyways, help me come up with something for cute. I was going to put Toby down, but I think he’d fit better with Jim.” Clearly seeing the hesitation on Krel’s face, he continued in an encouraging tone, “You can pick anyone from our class. Just think about it, and name someone cute that we know.”

It was such a straightforward question that Krel forgot who he was talking to. Without thinking, he said, “Eli, you’re the cutest guy in our class.”

Eli blinked once, twice.

Oh, _Kleb._

“You really think so?”

Krel wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

He wasn’t ready to tell Eli that he liked him. That picture he’d taken of them together, the one decorating his phone background now- that had already been a huge step for him. _Kleb,_ he wasn’t ready for this. Giving such a direct compliment like that, it was too obvious… Things were moving too fast. Had he just fucked up everything? And shit, wait, it had been more than a few seconds now. Eli was still waiting for an answer. He couldn’t back down now, he had to be truthful, but he couldn’t embarrass himself anymore.

“Yes.” Krel refused to look at Eli, didn’t want to see his facial expression. He didn’t want to be disappointed.

He picked up his phone. “Ah, look at that! Aja just texted me, she said I need to come immediately to deal with the Blanks. Ricky accidentally turned on the shower while trying to clean it, so, you know, that’s an emergency.” Krel grabbed his bag and frantically zipped it closed, slipping it over one shoulder. He reactivated his human disguise and stood up, ramrod straight. He gave a stiff wave.

“See you later, Eli!” He excused himself and bolted from the bedroom.

He missed the hopeful smile on Eli’s face, which switched to a crestfallen expression as the door swung shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i live for jealous krel bc eli really just.... develops a crush on anyone who is remotely nice to him. and honestly same


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise bitch. i bet you thought you'd seen the last of me

This was Krel’s first party.

Truthfully, he had attended royal parties on Akiridion-5, but those were filled with nobles and high-ranked officials trying to curry his favour as the young prince. They didn’t count as _real_ parties. They hadn’t been fun.

He supposed this may not count as a real party, either. From what he’d seen in human movies, parties were supposed to be loud, crowded, and full of sweaty teenagers drinking alcohol and dancing to pounding music. Their group maxed out at 15 – himself, Eli, Toby, Mary, Shannon, Darci, Aja, Steve, and some other boys and girls from their class whose names he didn’t remember. Mary was the one hosting the party; he guessed that they were her other friends. The most people he’d hung out with at once were Toby and Eli, so he still considered this a big upgrade.

Out of their small group, only Steve had drunk alcohol before. When he was 13, he snuck a sip of his dad’s cooler after he had passed out on the couch watching football. Emboldened, the next day he returned to their fridge to discreetly swipe a beer. His dad had caught him, and… well, Steve skimped on the details, but Krel could read between the lines.

Steve said that alcohol tasted really bad, anyways, so they should all listen to him and forget about even trying it until they were all 25.

Now he debated between pouring Fruitopia or Sprite into his cup. Despite the prominent lack of alcohol, Mary insisted on buying as many kinds of drinks as possible for the party and provided them with red solo cups like on TV.

“Just mix them together, little brother.” Aja nudged him. “It tastes better.”

Krel wrinkled his nose. “Wouldn’t that be too sweet?”

“I mean, if you wanted less sweet, you should just grab a glass of water.” She advised.

Krel looked across the kitchen, where Steve was raiding Mary’s fridge. A cluster of boys had gathered around him, egging him on. He spotted a familiar spike of brown hair, barely poking out between the taller people on either side of him. Steve squirted ketchup into his drink, then hot sauce, and orange juice. One of the boys passed him a bottle of chocolate syrup, which he added without hesitation. The boys started clamouring for him to chug it. Steve tossed his crowd a grin and drank his concoction in one pass. Eli cheered the loudest among his fans.

He set his jaw. “No, I can deal with mixing drinks.” Dumping the Sprite and Fruitopia into his cup, he nodded to the commotion by the fridge. “Isn’t Mary bothered by this? They’re making a huge mess.”

Aja turned to look. “I don’t think so. Steve knows he’s on clean-up crew for tonight.”

“Oh.” Krel hadn’t known that. If Steve was on clean-up, then Aja would probably be joining him, and that meant… she had probably volunteered him too. He shot her a suspicious look.

Realizing that Krel had caught on, Aja gave him a guilty smile. “I’m sorry, did I forget to mention I signed us both up?”

“Yes.”

“Well, surprise!” She said. “Mary has been very nice, helping me get situated at school and introducing us to her new friends. It was even nicer of her to invite us to this party, so I thought we should do something to help her.” Aja had a point. Mary was a lot nicer than he had originally pegged her for, and he appreciated her friendship a lot. Krel relented with a sigh.

His phone buzzed, likely announcing the arrival of their tardiest friend.

“Okay. I’m going to say hi to Toby and Darci.”

“By the way, Eli is helping afterwards, too!” She added helpfully as he made his way to the front door. Krel pretended that new information didn’t make his heart thrum.

“Hi.” He swung the door open.

“DJ Kleb! How’s it going, buddy?” Toby bustled his way through, Darci following closely behind him.

“Darci!” A high-pitched voice shrieked in his ear. Krel winced. Mary materialized besides him and rushed to envelope her friend in a big hug.

“Oh, thank God you’re here. I invited Hank to be nice- because, you know, I feel bad about how the break-up went down, and I want to make sure there’s no hard feelings, but now he won’t leave me alone!” She hissed. “I think he thinks I want to get back together or something.” She turned her head to scan the room, black hair swinging wildly.

She faced Darci again with a distressed expression. “And I can’t find Shannon. I think Hank- I, I don’t know, I think she felt awkward and I really hope she didn’t dip.”

“Hey, hey.” Darci consoled her. “It’s totally fine, Mary. I’m here now.” She held up her phone. “Shannon texted me a few minutes ago, I think she’s looking for you. I’ll go handle Hank, if that’s ok, TP.”

Toby gave her a thumbs-up. “Yea, sure.” He turned to Krel as the girls descended upon the party. “Where’s everyone else?”

Krel pointed out Aja, who was conversing with some of their other classmates, the ones Krel didn’t recognize. He didn’t really want to go join. He was a lot more comfortable with their little group of friends. “I think Eli and Steve are still drinking.” He pointed to the kitchen next.

Toby stared at the red solo cup in his hand. “Wait, _drinking_ drinking?”

“Huh? It’s just juice and soda. Steve is drinking… Gaylos knows what, at this point. I saw him put ketchup in there.”

“What!?” Toby’s tune changed immediately. He yanked on Krel’s arm and pulled him in the direction of the kitchen. “And you didn’t get video footage of it? I gotta see this!” Krel didn’t understand why everyone so enraptured by a teenage boy putting literal garbage into his body, but he followed suite anyways.

__

Steve had been eager to repeat his party trick for Toby, which resulted in an unfortunate trip to the bathroom and Krel patting the blond on the back sympathetically while Eli held his bangs out of his eyes. Funny that someone ended up puking even without alcohol being involved. Steve insisted that he could hold real liquor much better. They didn’t argue with him.

At some point, Darci returned from helping Mary. She caught them up to speed- Hank had been ejected from the party, and they didn’t think he was going to come back, but no one was supposed to answer the door for the rest of the night anyways.

“Yikes. That bad?” Eli asked, voice full of concern.

She shook her head. “It’s not a big deal. He was being way too clingy. Mary was fed up, I was fed up- he had to go. He’ll get over it eventually.” Darci assured them. “She has better people she could be hanging out with.”

Eli nodded sympathetically. Not so subtly, they all turned to look over at the living room. Plenty of kids were seated on the couch, pillows abandoned on the floor, as they talked to each other loudly. On the smaller chair, Mary was squished in besides Shannon, hanging on to her every word.

They looked happy.

Toby started to fill his girlfriend in on what she had missed, and Darci jumped in to talk about how that reminded him of another time Steve had puked, this time at school. Krel liked Darci, but right now she was just another person adding to the chaos and noise around him. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to adjust to the sensory overload. He let his attention wander as he tuned out his friends.

Mary made eye contact with him from across the room, and Krel offered her a small smile. She didn’t smile back, just sort of bugged out her eyes at him. He didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. He looked to Eli for explanation, but he was chattering to Toby about a horror movie they were planning to watch next weekend. Krel slowly put down his drink. He gave Mary a quizzical look.

Besides her, Shannon said something into her ear and Mary nodded. Shannon got up and left, probably to go to the bathroom. Mary jerked her head slightly, at the empty spot where Shannon had been sitting, and Krel understood. “I’m going to go talk to Mary.” Without waiting for a response, he excused himself quickly and went to sit besides her.

“Sorry, I didn’t think shouting to get your attention would work when it’s so loud.” Mary apologized.

“Why didn’t you just text me?”

“I gave Darci my phone.” She said sheepishly. “Hank kept texting me, and I didn’t want to have it open around Shannon, but I needed it on in case my parents called.”

Oh, that made sense. Krel frowned slightly. “That guy is really persistent.”

“Tell me about it.” Mary huffed. “Anyways, have you seen Steve or Aja?”

“No,” Krel said, a little confused by his own answer. He hadn’t even realized it, but he had lost track of them about 20 minutes ago. “You don’t think they’re…?” This _was_ a high school party.

“Gross, no!” Mary cut him off, and he silently thanked her for not letting him finish the thought. “I saw them bickering about something before, and when I went to talk to Aja, she told me they were just going to go and talk outside. They haven’t come back in yet, though.”

Aja and Steve didn’t fight very often. “And you want me to get them so you don’t have to leave Shannon alone?” He prompted.

“Yes, please. I was going to rally everyone to play truth or dare next, and I know that Aja wanted in since she’d never played before.” Mary seemed relieved that he understood what she was asking. “Sorry that I’m prying you away from your own date.”

“My date?” Krel repeated, baffled. The only person he had shown up with was Aja. And her date was Steve, and both Steve and Eli had shown up together since they’d been doing “Creepslayer training” that afternoon. Mary ignored him. She shot a look over his shoulder and plastered on a smile.

“Hey guys!” She greeted Eli and Shannon as they walked over. She scooted to one side of the chair, practically pushing Krel out of his seat. He rolled his eyes and got out of her way. “Eli, you can probably fit in too, you’re small enough.” Mary said, not unkindly, as Shannon sat down. They looked at each other and shared a smile. Shannon giggled a bit as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

Krel told himself he wasn’t jealous.

“No, that’s okay.” Eli looked at Krel. “I just, um-” He bit his lip. “I wanted to-” He gathered his courage to say what was on his mind. Mary and Shannon both leaned in, to Krel’s confusion. Eli aborted at the last second, feeling their gaze on him.

He deflated, shoulders dropping in defeat. “U-uh, well, you missed the rest of Darci’s story.” He said weakly. “I thought I’d come over and finish it.”

“Thanks, Eli, but I have to go find Aja.” Krel replied. “I’ll be back in a second.” Suddenly feeling bad for leaving, he gestured for Eli to take his seat. Their last encounter had been incredibly, _stupidly_ embarrassing, and he really wanted to put it out of his head… but he didn’t want Eli to think that he was avoiding him.

“But, uh, you know… Mary’s got a funny story for you, too.” He tried. Eli didn’t budge, so Shannon did Krel the favour of pulling him down to sit instead.

To Mary, he said, “You can show him that video from chemistry class- the, uh, incident with the Bunsen burner-”

“AHHH!” Mary shrieked, remembering the video in question. Frantically, she patted her pockets for her phone, then groaned when she came up empty. Shannon pulled out her own phone with a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

Krel shot Mary a withering look. She pretended not to see. They were the only two in the group who had chemistry together, and thus were each other’s lab partners. Though the incident _was_ funny in retrospect, he had told her specifically not to share that video with anyone else since its funniness was at his expense. Apparently, Shannon was the exception.

“Oh my God, Eli, it was hilarious!” Mary continued. “I was showing him all the stuff I keep in my bag, like mascara and concealer, you know, for makeup touch ups in the bathroom- and he had the flame on because we were supposed to be lighting these metals on fire or something, I don’t know -then he pulls out the hairspray, and he’s like ‘ _what’s this?’_ , and I’m like, ‘ _duh, it’s hairspray’_ , and he says he doesn’t know what that is, and then he accidentally points it at the Bunsen burner-”

Krel winced at the retelling of the story, but Eli was laughing, and the attention was off him, so it was worth it. He made a beeline towards the slide doors leading to the backyard.

___

Finding Steve and Aja was fairly simple. When he approached them, Aja had her arms crossed, and Steve was pouting- the usual stances they took when Aja had just won an argument and Steve was begrudgingly coming around to his side. They were still talking, but he coughed awkwardly into his fist to announce his arrival, and they shut up pretty quickly after that.

They headed back into the house, and Krel opened his mouth to ask Aja what they’d been discussing.

“Nothing, little brother.” She told him, unconvincingly. In any case, the tension between her and Steve had melted, so he supposed things had been resolved.

Then they had rejoined everyone else in the living room for truth and dare. The couch and chairs were pushed to the borders of the room, along with the coffee table. Mary kept out a couple of the chip bags and soda cans in case anyone wanted to snack, but most were busy paying attention to the game at hand. This was one game that the students at Arcadia Oaks took extremely seriously.

“Alright, alright.” Steve quieted the masses, shushing the other kids. “It’s my turn.” He looked around the circle. Everyone avoided making eye contact. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of one of Steve’s dares, but his ‘truth’ questions weren’t much better.

“Eli.” He said sharply.

Eli squeaked, clearly nervous. He adjusted his glasses in an attempt to hide his blush. _Cute,_ Krel thought to himself. It was basically a reflex at this point.

“Come on, Steve. Nothing too embarrassing.” Eli pleaded.

“Of course not.” Steve said smoothly. “Truth or dare?”

“Um… truth?”

Fatal mistake. Steve’s eyes lit up. He looked like the cat who got the canary. It was the same expression he wore right before tackling someone in football; most of the kids at the party had unfortunately been on the receiving end of that move in gym class. “Who do you have a crush on right now?”

Eli’s face went from pink to white as a sheet.

Besides him, Aja scowled and shoved him lightly. She grumbled something under her breath to him, something about that not being the question they agreed on. Steve scratched his chin, looking guilty but not particularly remorseful. He examined his friend’s horrified expression and his girlfriend’s peeved expression in succession.

“Okay, fine.” Steve threw his hands up in defeat. “I’ll make it easier for you. Who do you think is the cutest person in this room?” He stood up abruptly. Aja smiled at him now that it was clear he was just joking around. He posed like a model, flexed his muscles, and batted his eyelashes. “Don’t afraid to be honest. I want a number ranking out of 10.” He teased, sitting back down.

Eli visibly relaxed, understanding that he had been given an out.

Silence fell across the room as they waited for his answer.

For a half second, Steve’s eyes darted to Krel, then back to Eli, as if daring him not to tell the truth.

In an impressive show of stamina, Eli’s face changed colour again, this time to bright red. He composed himself. Cleared his throat. Very quietly, so quietly half the room had to strain to hear him, he said, “Krel.”

“What?” Krel said bluntly, clearly not paying attention. He had spaced out on Eli’s cute freckles again. Like he said, it was just a reflex now.

“Cute! I said you’re the cutest!” Eli practically yelled. It was a sharp change (in volume _and_ demeanor) from his nervous look before. He looked both ashamed and proud of himself for admitting it. Krel didn't understand it. He didn't understand anything that was going on right now, but he knew that Eli's statement was fundamentally wrong. 

“Well, that’s not true.” Krel heard himself saying. “I told you before, it’s definitely you.”

Darci choked on her drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for yeeting off the face of the earth for this update. i am so bad at juggling work and writing and im not quite happy with the cliffhanger and i also wrote about 500% more for this chapter than i normally do,, so pls just take it. confession scene coming up next to finish this all off!!
> 
> drop a comment or say hi!!

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me about kreli on tumblr!!! @starfiyah and @fiyaharts (shameless art plug hehe)


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